Movement keys for strafing
It's been suggested before, but I'd like to see [Down-Arrow] become a "Back Thrust" function, at some percentage the acceleration of the "Forward Thrust" function if needed for balance?
I'd also like to see a Right Thrust and Left Thrust (nerdgasm: creating a lateral acceleration vector) functionality added, although it would require binding two more keys and would not be usable with the typical arrow keys layout. It could be bound to the typical WASD layout of other 2D overhead perspective games, using [Q] and [E] (the 10-key/numpad would work well also, or IJKL w/ O & U), and again the functions could be balanced by making them only a percentage of the full acceleration provided by Forward-Thrust. The additional lateral movement capabilities would make for much more variety in space combat maneuvers, especially while using fixed-forward weapons. It would get really interesting once the AIs can be programmed to utilize lateral vectors as well, just imagine your NPC opponents actually dodging shots instead of just eating them or attempting to spin around and fly out of the way. As for realism, well, who says all the engines have to be pointing out the back side of your ship? Even the Space Shuttles have lots and lots of maneuvering jets pointing in all kinds of directions to achieve total vectoring control.
For more information about what the hell I'm pushing for, please see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strafing_% ... e_strafing. Circle strafing is just one of many combat strategies enabled by lateral movement, but that Wiki article gets straight to the heart of the matter via the most common usage.
http://www.neurohack.com/transcendence/ ... ing#p41234 Old thread asking for the same thing, but I didn't want to necro it. I searched Xelerus for any mods mentioning "strafe" but got no hits. I'm going to have to do a LOT of digging into the source code to find out how forward thrusting works, and learning to see if I can make a mod out of this, so if anybody has tried it before and/or has a mod out there already, please let me know, as I'd rather not reinvent the wheel, thanks!
I'm planning on finishing my Defiant playership before I take on any other new major projects, but I wanted to get this idea out of my head before I forget and another year goes by before it's mentioned again.
Edit: The keyword was "thrust"
which showed me this:
http://xelerus.de/index.php?s=mod&id=738 but that mod is for ver 1.01, and uses momentum factors generated by weapons fire, so not quite what I had in mind. I'm thinking more about having smooth acceleration on key-press, not a one time "shove" that has a cool-down.
)
